1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to wood chippers and, more particularly, to a reversing automatic feed wheel assembly for a wood chipper.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is known to provide a wood chipper for chipping wood such as brush, branches, and the like to produce wood chips. An example of such a wood chipper is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,988,539 to Morey. In this patent, the wood chipper includes an infeed assembly, feed wheel assembly, and a cutting assembly having a rotatable disc with at least one knife or blade for chipping the wood entering the wood chipper and reducing it to wood chips. Typically, the feed wheel assembly includes a stationary lower feed wheel connected to a lower housing and a movable upper feed wheel connected to an upper housing movable relative to the lower housing for allowing wood to enter the cutting assembly. The wood chipper also includes an engine connected to a hydraulic pump, which pumps fluid to drive hydraulic motors to rotate the feed wheels.
Although this type of feed wheel assembly has worked well, it suffers from the disadvantage of stalling the engine of the wood chipper when an excessive load is placed on the cutting assembly by the wood material fed to the cutting assembly by the feed wheel assembly. When the engine stalls, the wood chipper is plugged. As a result, the wood chipper has to be unplugged, the engine restarted, and wood material refed to the feed wheel assembly. This is relatively time consuming and labor intensive, resulting in higher costs, which is undesired. Therefore, there is a need in the art to provide a reversing automatic feed wheel assembly for a wood chipper that overcomes the above disadvantages.
Accordingly, the present invention is a reversing automatic wheel feed wheel assembly for a wood chipper including an infeed assembly and a rotatable cutting assembly spaced from the infeed assembly. The reversing automatic feed wheel assembly also includes at least one feed wheel disposed between the infeed assembly and the cutting assembly to feed wood material to the cutting assembly. The reversing automatic feed wheel assembly further includes a control system operatively connected to the at least one feed wheel to automatically reverse the infeed of the wood material in response to a reduced speed or excessive load placed on the cutting assembly/engine power source.
One advantage of the present invention is that a reversing automatic feed wheel assembly is provided for a wood chipper. Another advantage of the present invention is that the reversing automatic feed wheel assembly stops, reverses, and then restarts the feed wheel assembly. A further advantage of the present invention is that the reversing automatic feed wheel assembly includes a control system that can be used with a feed wheel assembly that is powered hydraulically, electronically, or pneumatically.
Other features and advantages of the present invention will be readily appreciated, as the same becomes better understood, after reading the subsequent description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.